First
episode (Fourth series) taken from The Rover issue: 1268 February
18th 1950.

What lies below Britain?
Follow the amazing adventures of H.K. Rodd as he sets out to answer that
intriguing question!

VIGIL IN THE PENSTONES

The
sun was setting behind the wild Penstone Hills as Ted Davis, a newspaper
correspondent who covered a wide district, bumped along the rough track towards
the main road on his motor cycle. The bike bumped through a rut and came to the
firmer surface of the main road. Davis picked
up speed and rode for two miles before he stopped at a phone box. When he
spoke, the telephone operator in the small Ridstock exchange recognised his
voice. “Is there any news yet, Mr Davis?” she asked. “No good news, Miss
Robbins,” said the reporter gruffly. “I couldn’t sleep a wink for thinking
about the boy last night,” exclaimed the operator. “I’ve hardly had a wink of sleep
in four days and nights,” said Davis. “Get
me the London number
again.” Two minutes later he heard John Cowper, the news editor, come on to the
line. “I’m glad you’re through promptly, Davis,” he
said briskly. “The story will be our splash again to-night and I want it for
the early editions. What’s fresh?” “The boy has been heard again,” replied Davis. “It
was about three o’clock this
afternoon that hewas heard very faintly
from somewhere under the three chimneys—three pinnacles at the east end of the
ridge.” “He’s still alive then, thank goodness,” exclaimed Cowper. “Ay, but he
can’t last much longer if they don’t get down to him,” said Davis. “The
lad has been underground for nearly five days.” “What about the pot-holing
experts from the Mendips? Haven’t they made any progress?” asked the news
editor. “No,” said Davis. “I
was talking to one of them just now. He’d tried to get through from the Third
Cave on the west side, but he said the water was coming down an underground
river with such force that even in his frogman’s suit he couldn’t make any
headway against it.” “Digging seems to be the only hope then?” exclaimed
Cowper. “Just as I was coming away an oil-boring crew arrived and were setting
up their derrick by the Three Chimneys,” answered Davis. “The
soldiers have brought a searchlight as well as the listening apparatus, so
they’ll have light enough to work by.” “Right! I’ll get to work on this right
away,” said Cowper. “It’s the biggest human interest story we’ve had in years.”
Davis turned
back to his motor cycle. He paused to light his pipe. He was dead tired. He had
not been home since the news reached him that Jeb Edwards, a ten-year-old
goat-herd, had crawled down a fissure in the Penstone Hills and had vanished.
After three miles Davis reached
a huddle of cottages in a dell. They formed the hamlet of Pentonbury and were
the homes of shepherds and quarrymen. It was impossible for wheeled vehicles to
go further, and fifty or sixty cars and lorries were parked in the rough
fields. Among them was the van of a film unit and two big radio-transmitting
cars of London and Manchester
newspapers. As Davis
dismounted he reflected that all Great
Britain was waiting for
news of the boy.

THE MAD AIRMAN

Jeb’s
mother, shawl over her head, had a group of neighbours around her as she
trudged towards her cottage. She had been on the hills all day. Now the kindly
folk of the hamlet had persuaded her to return home for a while. Mrs Edwards,
the widow of a soldier, had known Davis for a
long time. He did not worry her as the horde of London
newspaper reporters, sympathetic as they were, and looked appealingly towards
him as if waiting for some reassuring message. “You go and have something to
eat and a lie-down,” Davis said.
“The soldiers and the oil-men will get your lad out.” “I was always telling him
not to go crawling into those holes,” exclaimed Mrs Edwards, and she had said
many times before. “He gave us a bad fright when he was missing all one
afternoon.” “You can’t put old heads on young shoulders,” said Davis. “I
warned him, too,” said Ezra Hobson, an old shepherd, in a voice gruff with
emotion. “I told him about that dog of mine that went down a pot-hole and never
came up. I told him about the sheep we’ve lost down these fissures.” “He was
always talking about the things he’d seen in the caves,” remarked Jake Joplin,
the old hill farmer whose goats Jeb looked after. “He’d chatter away about
pictures drawn on the walls and such like.” “Ay, that lad was always
romancing,” declared Hobson. “What he wanted was a stick across his pants to
knock a bit of sense into him—all this worry he’s causing his mother!” Mrs
Edwards dabbed at her eyes with a corner of her shawl. Davis shook
his head sympathetically and left the village. He climbed the winding track up
on to the high ground. He had walked about half a mile when the tall figure of
Horace Cairns, a London
reporter, loomed out of the dusk. “I don’t think there’ll be anything fresh for
several hours, Ted,” he said. “The oil-men have got to drill going over the
spot where the lad was heard, but it will take them hours to get down any
distance. The Sappers are trying to drive a horizontal shaft into the hill, but
they’re making slow progress. I’m going to have a meal and lie down for a bit.”
Davis walked
on towards the searchlight. In its glare the three great pinnacles of solid
rock called the Three Chimneys, stood out boldly. Close by was the derrick. A
motor was clattering as it drove a drill. From a hole farther down the slope
three soldiers in steel helmets and overalls crawled out. A group of
sightseers, warned to get back, ran hurriedly away. A detonator was fired.
There was a muffled rumble and smoke poured from the hole. Almost immediately
the Sappers went in again to remove the debris that the explosive had dislodged.
Just as Davis
reached the top of the hill, the motor driving the drill was throttled down.
The husky-looking oil-men worked furiously to fix another length of pipe to the
drill. The foreman shouted, the engine roared, and the boring restarted. The foreman
told Davis they
had reached a depth of twenty yards. “We think there’s a cave just below and
we’re aiming to bore through it,” he said. “Once we’re through it will be easy
to enlarge the hole.” “You’d be able to let food down,” remarked the reporter.
“That’s the idea,” the foreman replied. “We think we’re in the right spot. It
was right under our feet that the lad was last heard.” Davis kept a
vigil until midnight. Then,
like many other observers, he went down the hill. He slept on a truss of straw
in a barn with many other reporters. By break of dawn he was making his way
towards the summit. He was approaching the top when the clatter of the motor
stopped. The shouts he heard spurred him into a run. “Are you through?” he
called out. The foreman turned a gravely serious face towards him. “We’ve
struck something so tough that the drill’s broken,” he said. “It will be hours
before we can start boring again.” The morning was grey and misty. Faces were
lined and haggard. Davis walked
down to talk to Police Sergeant Clune, who had himself brought off a risky cave
rescue during the summer, when a venturesome holiday maker had been trapped.
“Between you and me, I think it’s all up with the lad,” Clune said. “I’d hate
to tell his mother, but I’ve given up hope myself—” A hoarse shout rang out. A soldier, covered with
slime, staggered out of the gallery. Two other Sappers threw themselves into
the open as, with a gurgle and splash, water roared out of the shaft and rushed
down the slope in a cascade. It was a moment of disaster, a moment when both
rescue efforts had failed. It was a moment when tired and dispirited men looked
up angrily at the sound of aeroplane engines. “It’s some crazy photographer,”
snarled Clune. “We’ve had their planes buzzing over our heads day in and day
out. Look at him!” Out of the mist burst a plane, a Mosquito, flying so low
that men ducked. Fists were shaken as the plane swung away. “My stars, he’s
putting the wheels down,” roared Clune. “He’ll write himself off if he tries to
land,” Davis
gulped. The Mosquito came back. Its shadow passed over them. The spectators
scattered as the wheels touched down. The aircraft raced forward towards the
jagged rocks standing less than a cricket pitch apart. “He’s for it and serve
him right,” cried the police officer in a choking voice. Almost before the
words were out of his mouth the plane had passed cleanly between the rocks,
slowed down, and stopped within a few strides of the Three Chimneys. The pilot
climbed out and stood on the wing. He was far above average height and had
broad, sloping shoulders. His hair gleamed like burnished gold and he had the
keen features of a Viking. The angry men gathered round the plane. The pilot
stooped. Out of the cockpit he lifted a frogman’s suit. He dropped it on the
wing. He leaned into the cockpit again and fetched out a rope, an ice-pick, a
piton hammer, and a small kit-bag. Horace Cairns stared at the newcomer and a
gasp broke from him. “It’s H.K. Rodd,” he shouted. “H.K. Rodd—the Wonder Man!”

RODD GETS TO WORK

Sergeant Clune stared first at Rodd
and then at the London
journalist. “Is that the Rodd who licked the crook who was controlling the
weather?” he gasped. “That’s him,” Cairns
exclaimed. “Gosh, he’s the one man who might rescue Jeb Edwards now.” Rodd leapt
down from the plane. He was the man who, as an infant, had been adopted by two
of Britain’s
greatest scientists and brought up according to their theories with astounding
results. All his powers had been amazingly developed. Cairns ran up
to him. “You’ve come to help in the search for the lad, Mr Rodd?” Rodd nodded
briskly. “I’ve been in America. I
only returned to London a few
hours ago,” he said. “I heard the broadcast about the boy at midnight and I’ve come
along to see if I can help.” Sergeant Clune glanced towards the rocks. “You
took an awful chance landing here, sir,” he said. “Took a chance?” Rodd said.
“Oh, no, sergeant! I must have had at least a foot to spare on either side of
those rocks. Now—” He spoke with authority, “I can’t work in a crowd. I’d like
your help, sergeant, and the help of one or two people who know the district.”
Rodd’s hint was as good as a command. Soldiers, oilmen, and reporters stood
back and watched as Rodd walked away with Clune and Davis. Two hundred yards
away from the Three Chimneys, Clune stopped on a rough patch of grass. “This is
where the lad was looking after the goats,” he said. “Just over there,” he
pointed to an area of rocks and stones, “are several fissures. A man couldn’t
squeeze down, but young Jeb might have wormed his way through.” Rodd strode
across to the place where jagged cracks in the limestone were visible. He
examined several of them quickly before stopping at a narrow hole in the rock.
“This is where he went down,” he said. “I don’t think he did,” Clune replied.
Rodd bent down. His finger and thumb removed a tiny wisp of cloth, just a
thread or two, from a rough bit of rock. “He caught his shirt there,” he said.
“I never noticed that,” muttered the policeman. Rodd lay down. He stretched
himself flat with an ear to the ground just at the edge of the fissure. Clune
and Davis stood silently, straining their ears for any sound. With an agile
bound Rodd got to his feet again. He took twelve strides that seemed to be
measured. He lay down and listened on what appeared to be solid rock. Again he
stood up. He turned and looked towards the nearest of the Three Chimneys. His
eyes were calculating. His gaze travelled from the spot on which he was
standing to the pinnacle. With his eye he measured the distance. “One hundred
and three feet—and six inches,” he muttered. “No doubt there’s a passage for
the entire length.” Davis,
standing behind him, pulled a large scale map from his pocket. He tugged a
ruler from his pocket and laid it on the map. He shifted the ruler to the
scale. “The nearest I can get it is a hundred and two feet,” he said. Rodd was
quickly on the move again. He walked over to a stream that came trickling and
bubbling down the slope until it vanished in a fissure. Davis saw he
was keenly interested. “There must be a score of streams that run away
underground, Mr Rodd,” he said. “They join together somewhere underneath us and
run out into the River Trench. If you come across here you’ll see it far
below.” Rodd strode to the edge of the plateau. He gazed down the hillside. At
the bottom a river came swirling out of a tunnel into a rocky gorge. “Let me
see, it’s nine hundred and seventy-five feet down the slope to the river,” he
said swiftly. “If we could take a vertical line from down under our feet to
water level it would be three hundred feet. That gives us two sides of the
triangle. Now I want the distance from the tunnel mouth to directly below
us—the third side of the triangle. He was silent for an instant. “That will be
nine hundred and twenty-seven decimal six nine feet,” he rapped out. Sergeant
Clune was staggered by the speed at which Rodd had solved that intricate
mathematical problem. Davis, no mathematician, looked questioningly at Rodd.
“Why did you want to calculate the distance?” he asked. Rodd started to walk
towards the pile of articles he had taken out of the plane. “That’s the
distance I shall have to go up the river from the tunnel mouth to get under
this spot,” he said. “There’s no way through from the caves at the other side.”
“Go up the river? You’ll never do it,” Clune gasped. “The water rushes out like
a cataract. Others have tried it. They were washed back like corks.” “Perhaps
I’ll be a bit luckier,” Rodd was saying when Mrs Edwards, with two or three of
the villagers, hurried wildly towards him. “This is the lad’s mother,”
whispered Davis. Mrs
Edwards was in tears as she came towards the little group. “Are you going down
after my Jeb?” she cried. “Yes, we’ll get him out,” said Rodd. Mrs Edwards
clasped her hands together. “I dropped off to sleep for a little time,” she
said and shuddered. “I dreamed he was dead.” Rodd’s voice rang out
reassuringly. “No, the lad isn’t dead,” he said. “When I was listening just now
I could hear him moving about. He’s very weak, but I’ll get to him in time.”

UNDERWATER APPROACH

Within a few minutes Rodd, carrying
his equipment, walked down towards the gorge. A crowd followed him. Captain
Richardson, who was in command of the sappers, was with him. “You have a
sound-detection apparatus with you?” Rodd asked. “Yes, we used it before we
started to make out tunnel,” replied Richardson. I’d
like you to keep it manned,” Rodd said. “I may have to try to get a message
through to you. It’s obvious I shan’t be able to bring the boy out the way I’m
going in.” The sapper looked down at the water rushing out of the jagged hole
in the limestone. “You’ll never get in,” he said bluntly. “It’s madness to
try.” Rodd did not answer. He went into a small cave. When he reappeared he was
wearing the suit of a frogman. On his back an oilskin haversack was strapped.
Ice-pick and piton hammer were attached to his belt. For a few moments Rodd
stood on the brink of the gorge. The startled onlookers saw him jump. He jumped
down to a ledge of rock about twelve feet down the cliff and from there he
dived into the swirling, turbulent water. He stayed under the surface, but Davis could
make out his shape. He was coming to a point from which other swimmers, also
equipped with frogman-suits, had whirled back like leaves. An astonished cry
broke from the reporter. The dark shape under the water was not being forced
back, but was going steadily forward with swift, measured strokes. A minute
later the tunnel had swallowed him up. Rodd had a lamp fixed to a waterproofed
battery with him, but he did not switch it on. He could see enough for his
purpose and concentrated on his battle against the onrush of the water. He was
using a crawl stroke with a fast, powerful beat that slowly but steadily drove
him forward. The roar of the river grew louder. Rodd felt its force increase.
The pressure grew until he was no more than holding his own. The blackness was
complete, even to him. Even his eyes, that in ordinary darkness were like
cat’s, could not penetrate the gloom from which even the faintest trace of
light was shut out. He touched a switch and the lamp in his cap shone through
the water. Rodd saw that the tunnel narrowed till it was little more than the
span of his arms. The water rushing through it carried a colossal pressure.
Rodd turned to the side of the tunnel. He dropped till his feet touched the
bottom. In an upright position, huddling close to the rock, digging his fingers
into crevices to give him hold, he edged along, made a few inches at a time
till the force of the water lessened, and he shot to the surface of the cavern.
The water filled the cave from side to side and from the far end came a
thunderous roar. Rodd swam up to a waterfall that cascaded down into the cave
and like a swimmer diving through a breaker at the sea, he knifed through the
cascade. Now he was in the spray-filled space behind the waterfall, with the
backwash surging round his waist. He grasped his piton hammer. From a pouch he
took a piton—a metal spike used by climbers. He fitted the point to a crevice
and drove it far enough in to stand the weight. He reached up to another cranny
and hammered another piton home. Then he pulled himself up and started to climb
up behind the torrent. Near the top he stopped and clung on. The water was
roaring over the ledge and curving out just above his head. He saw that just at
the edge a spur of rock diverted the water and that here it was flowing with
slightly less force than in the centre. Rodd crouched on the topmost piton.
Then he sprang and thrust arms and elbows over the ledge. The water swirled
over him, tearing at him, threatening to whisk him away and hurl him back into
the depths. He swung a knee up. He hugged the wall of the channel. He lay flat
to reduce the resistance and he wriggled up the bed of the river until he felt the
force of the current lessen. He stood up, and with the water swirling round his
waist, waded along until he passed under an archway into an enormous cave. Here
the river flowed through masses of shingle on either side. Rodd crawled out of
the water on to the stones. He saw there was a faint gleam of light, light that
filtered through some deep fissure. He took off his helmet and the frogman
suit. Underneath he was wearing shirt, corduroy trousers, and socks. He opened
the haversack, fetched out a pair of shoes with thick crepe rubber soles. After
putting them on he shouldered the haversack, picked up his ice-pick, and stood
gazing round. Three tunnels had their exits into the cave. Without hesitation
Rodd selected the middle one. He had to use his lamp again for there was not a
flicker of light. It was like a maze. The rock was full of holes of fissures of
wider tunnels. As if he had a map of the area. Rodd strode on. With complete
certainty he threaded his way through the tangle of passages. He emerged into a
cave that at first sight appeared to be a cul-de-sac with only one way out.
Rodd walked over the soaring rock face. He put his ear to the limestone and
listened. He could hear a faint trickle of water and he gave a satisfied nod.
“That’s the stream that I heard from the top,” he murmured. “I’m under the
Three Chimneys.” He reached up, prised his fingers into a tiny crack in the
rock and started to climb.

NEWS OF JEB EDWARDS

Sergeant Clune and Davis came
plodding up the hill. Near the Three Chimneys a sergeant of the sappers was
squatting on a chunk of rock. Ear-phones were clamped round his head. They were
connected to the metal box containing sensitive coils and diaphragms of the
listening apparatus. Captain Richardson walked to meet the police officer and
the reporter. “Any trace of Rodd?” he asked. Clune shook his head grimly. “He’s
been gone a couple of hours,” he said. “He’s drowned, no doubt about that. Ay,
and he won’t be the first who’s gone underground never to be seen again.” There
were sounds of hammering as the oil-men began to dismantle the derrick. “Tell
them to stop that row!” It was the Sapper Sergeant M’Kenzie, who snapped these
words. “Have you heard something?” Richardson
demanded. “I can’t be sure,” said M’Kenzie. Clune put his whistle to his lips.
His long blast attracted the attention of the oil-men. He signalled to them to
stop making a noise. His whistle brought people hurrying towards the spot. Davis ran to
a small pot-hole in a bare expanse of rock. He threw himself down, head over
the hole, and listened. “I heard the boy, I’m sure I heard the boy,” he
shouted. “That’s just about where we heard him before,” said Clune. Sergeant
M’Kenzie jerked his head up. “There are two voices,” he exclaimed hoarsely.
“The Wonder Man must have got to him.” Rodd had found the boy, found him in a
small cave from which many galleries led out, found him in just the spot he had
expected. Light filtered down through numerous tiny cracks and, at a glance,
Rodd had seen how the lad had come to be imprisoned. There had been a fall of
earth down the largest of the fissures, which had blocked it completely. Rodd
looked down into the little white face. Jeb’s hair hung down over his forehead
and ears. His clothes were in rags. Rodd opened his haversack. He took out a
flask, unscrewed the cup, and filled it with tea that was half milk and very
sweet. “I’ll hold the cup,” he said. “Your hand is a bit shaky isn’t it?” So
far Jeb had been too overcome to speak. He sipped at the hot liquid and a
little colour returned to his face. The cup was soon empty and Rodd filled it
again. He gave the boy some biscuits and he crammed them ravenously into his
mouth. Rodd picked up the ice-pick. He lifted it up and started to tap on the
roof of the cave. “What are you doing?” whispered Jeb. “I’m signalling to the
soldiers on the hill,” said Rodd. “I’m telling them where to dig. They’ll soon
have you out.” “I’ll never come down here no more,” muttered the boy. “Why did
you come down?” Rodd asked. “I came down to look at the pictures,” Jeb
answered. “Pictures?” Rodd exclaimed. Jeb gave a quick little nod. He pointed
to one of the passages. “Down there. That’s where they are,” he said. “Pictures
of animals—painted on the walls.”

THE CAVE OF WHISPERS

Two hours later Sergeant M’Kenzie’s
head appeared out of the fissure. He heaved himself up and threw his spade out
on to the ground. Piled at the side was the soil that he and the other Sappers
had excavated. “We’re through,” he said. “Rodd’s bringing the lad up now.” Even
hardened reporters, some of them former war correspondents, cheered at the
news. With tears trickling down her face Mrs Edwards eagerly awaited her son.
Scraping sounds were heard, sounds that quickly grew louder. “Here he is!”
roared Davis.
Sergeant Clune grasped hold of Jeb and lifted him out of the hole as cameras
clicked. Rodd looked up. He did not attempt to climb out. “I’m going back for a
look round,” he called out. “You needn’t bother about me.” The reporters were
racing away to get the news to the world. Mrs Edwards was still hugging her lad
tightly to her as Rodd slid down again and vanished from view. From the cave in
which he had found Jeb he worked his way down a passage, in places so low that
he had to bend double to get along. He straightened his back and stood straight
up on entering a cave. Light filtered in from a narrow crack. Rodd gazed in
amazement at the pictures on the walls and on the roof. He stared at a painting
of a great horned bull, at a long maned horse, at a fantastic bird in crude,
but vivid, colours. Rodd knew he had slipped back in time, slipped back into an
“art gallery” of fifteen to seventeen thousand years before. He was looking at
the work of Cro-Magnon men, the race who existed when the last remnants of the
Ice Age were receding from Europe. He
put on his torch and shone it around. He saw that behind a large rock there was
a gap large enough for a man to squeeze through. Further along the cave he
discovered another such opening. Rodd picked one of the openings and plunged
into it. The passage was so narrow that the sides brushed his broad shoulders.
It followed a zig-zag course. He soon found himself in a bewildering maze of
passages. They ran in all directions. To save his torch he put it out and lit a
candle taken from his haversack. There was no draught to make the flame
flicker. In and out of the cracks and passages, up and down as the levels
varied, sometimes able to stand upright, at other times having to bend double,
Rodd pressed on. He had to turn sideways to edge through a fissure. He took two
or three more paces and stopped in the entrance to a great cavern lit by shafts
of sunlight lit by shafts of sunlight from cracks high in the roof. On the wall
facing him was a vast, crude painting of a red bull. Rodd walked forward
slowly. His gaze fixed on a stone block, set like an altar in front of the
picture. He came up to it and he looked down, looked at numerous footprints in
the dusty ground round the altar. On the altar was laid a great flint knife. He
was reaching out to pick it up when he saw gleaming red stains both on the
altar and upon the knife, stains that were sticky to the touch and which he
knew were fresh blood. He stood motionless. His acute senses warned him that he
was not alone, that he was being watched. He listened and he became aware of
whispers in the walls around him.